FROM THE OBSERVATION TOWER That Shettima Statement By Femi Idowu

I have been thinking  about the statement credited to Nigeria’s VP Shettima that ‘we empathise with Nigerians, but there is no alternative to current economic reforms’

It’s important to quote a little bit more from the speech of the Vice President while declaring open the 30th Economic Summit in Abuja.

He said inter alia ‘My heart and the heart of President Tinubu go out to most of the Nigerian people. We empathise with what the poor and the young are going through in Nigeria but we have no option as he (Tinubu) rightly said’.

It’s such a sad statement and indeed sadistic.

Sadistic in the sense that it’s clear to many of us that Nigeria’s political leaders actually derive pleasure from hurting Nigerians and making them suffer physically and mentally.

I find it quite disturbing that the VP used the word EMPATHISE.
Someone in his office should have checked the meaning of the word EMPATHY, which is the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it could be like to be in that person’s  situation.

We all know that’s far from what is happening in Nigeria. The political leaders continue to live in affluence while life gets tougher by the day for the ordinary citizens.
You can’t tell me you have the ability to empathise when you are so far removed from the realities of the people who voted you into office.
It is actually not just what you say but what you do that determines empathy.

You can’t be jetting all over the world spending Nigeria’s Naira which when exchanged to foreign currencies you will need to carry with hundreds of big sacks, to take care of the leaders and members of their entourage on these expensive trips and holidays, and say you can empathise with millions of Nigerians who daily agonise over filling their vehicles with PMS, paying high tarrifs in electricity, where pensioners are paid pittance and not paid regularly. Where pensioners who have worked hard in the past now have to face the rigours of representing their credentials because they allegedly missed a mandatory I AM ALIVE exercise.

Their pension entitlements don’t only get stopped, it takes years to restore in many instances- and that’s all the pensioners depend on!

There is hardship on all fronts in Nigeria.

Our people have been so pauperised that they have become so traumatised.
The mental health situation of thousands is quite pathetic.
Many say it is extremely difficult for them to properly feed their families.

Yet a leader is so insensitive to talk about empathy.

Could it be that these senior politicians in Nigeria have also not been able to pick the appropriate staff (including knowledgeable speech writers) to work with them. It’s clear to us that many ministers are not doing well in office any way. The quality of communication from their offices has been quite embarrassing.

That however has reminded me about the experiences of some of my colleagues and friends who wrote speeches for some military governors in those days. Some of the military governors who were particularly known for their inability to communicate in the English language properly, were also in the habit of setting aside speeches prepared for events midway and ad-libbing (to Ad lib is to make up words or music in a performance instead of saying  or playing something that has been planned)- the outcome was always disastrous.

Wherever the problem lies in the current situation, what we are seeing is that our leaders are simply insincere…maybe even dubious.

Beyond that is the insinuation that Nigerians have really not seen what suffering is and that they should expect things to get worse.
That is my understanding of the notion that there is no alternative to the current economic reforms of this government.

Many commentators have analysed why the so called reforms are not working, many suggestions have been made as to  how things could be adjusted so that Nigerians could at least be a little bit more comfortable.

It should not be not rocket science to follow suggestions as to downsizing government.
Simple suggestions as to reducing the salaries and emoluments of political office holders have been blatantly ignored.
One would have seen an indication of empathy if even only the number of vehicles in these top political leaders entourage has been pruned.

There have been loads of suggestions made to this government but they keep telling us they are wiser than all Nigerians put together.
They are, in a way making it known to us, that they are deliberately punishing the people.

It is looking like the message we are getting is that if we think Buhari came to flog Nigerians (like King Rehoboam said in the Bible- 1 Kings 12) with whips, Tinubu has come to scourge us with scorpions.

I have seen in life that people get easily power drunk, that’s it’s so easy for a sense of invincibility to creep into leaders pysche and with the Lagos boy gragra mentality, that will most likely be the case. It’s obvious that the virus will spread easily if you are in that camp though you don’t actually have the same upbringing.

I cannot overemphasise the fact that words are too powerful and delicate, whether written or spoken, to be handled as carelessly as our political leaders are doing.

The way they are talking, what they are dishing out, is seriously adding insult to injury for Nigerians and they need to know that every situation in life has an elastic limit.

A word should be sufficient for the wise.

Femi Idowu is a London based freelance Journalist.
He was one time Bureau Chief for NTA News, Ibadan Bureau

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